City explores ways to collect over $6M in unpaid parking tickets

The City of Saskatoon is looking at several ways to try and collect more than $6 million in outstanding parking ticket fines.

Ward 5 Coun. Randy Donauer requested the information during the Aug. 6 Transportation Committee meeting.

Matt Grazier, Community Standards Director, told councillors it was an improvement from 2022.

“In analyzing data…outstanding parking ticket value for the time period was reduced from $6.8 million to $6.1 million, a reduction of approximately $700,000,” said Grazier.

Over the last two years, Grazier explained a second “boot crew” — or parking enforcement unit — has been used to locate vehicles tied to outstanding tickets. More emphasis has been placed on “early pay” options, and ticket reminders are also issued for “scofflaws” — those with two or more outstanding parking tickets.

According to a city report, as of April 24, 2024, there were more than 12,000 vehicles with “scofflaw” status.

New Initiatives

Grazier’s department is exploring additional methods of recovering the millions owed, including hiring a collections firm to address tickets given to people who live outside of Saskatoon.

Other measures, where scofflaws owe a considerable amount of money, include possible lien registrations, judgment filings, or even using sheriffs to help collect outstanding debt.

Ward 1 Councillor Darren Hill inquired whether parking ticket pay stations track the license plate numbers of those with outstanding tickets.

“Pay stations do not alert our boot crews, so somebody could currently enter their plate number into the pay station, and it wouldn’t get flagged,” said Grazier.

He added a request has also been made to SGI, for more detailed access to current driver information. In the future unpaid parking tickets could be tied to the ability of a driver to renew either their license or registration, similar to provinces like Alberta.